The Critics
Untrue story of the Kelly Gang
For a folk hero this Ned has zero contact with the ordinary Irish folk who will supposedly come to love him, says Christopher Silvester
Pure gold among the C4 dross
Adam LeBor strikes television gold
Ring up the new
The most expensive post-war work sold last year fetched just over $91 million. The most expensive Old Master sold for $21.5 million
Tapping into history
As soon as you enter Idagio.com you can kiss your working day goodbye
She’s not the messiah…
Watching Greta Thunberg and the hysterical devotion she arouses, I am reminded of Judaism’s best-known self-styled redeemer
A belly full of agitpropera
Opera really doesn’t need the help of activist directors when it comes to politics — it’s all there already
Non-nose job
In a free reworking of “Cyrano”, it takes pizzazz to rewrite French alexandrines in the manner of Eminem
The toughest role
The most successful modern actor-director, Clint Eastwood, rejects “the auteur crap”
A wealth of glorious objects and images
A new book about the discovery of classical sculptures and frescoes is itself a real treasure
Murders for November
Another mélange of murders, from Japan to Scotland
The authoritarian populism of Keir Starmer
This government is anything but technocratic
The eternal lockdown of the soul
Lockdown-lifers have become a key tool of the state
Midlands marvels and mysteries
A fitting if flawed tribute to one of England’s more undersung counties
Nigel’s knees-up
Can Reform become a serious contender for power?
England’s forgotten football dystopia
The beautiful game is not fit to be a national religion
Office politics
There’s the joker, the slacker, and the bloke who just got fired
Tragedy, comedy and an Italian parable
Three great novels capture a moment of change for society
The professional classes don’t understand manual work
They cannot understand distinctions between different kinds of labour
Why Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokes didn’t work
It is very hard to blend comedy and politics
